SAILING homeward, the Doctor’s ship had to pass the coast of Barbary.This coast is the seashore of the Great Desert. It is a wild, lonelyplace—all sand and stones. And it was here that the Barbary pirateslived.
These pirates, a bad lot of men, used to wait for sailors to beshipwrecked on their shores. And often, if they saw a boat passing,they would come out in their fast sailing-ships and chase it. When theycaught a boat like this at sea, they would steal everything on it; andafter they had taken the people off they would sink the ship and sailback to Barbary singing songs and feeling proud of the mischief theyhad done. Then they used to make the people they had caught write hometo their friends for money. And if the friends sent no money, thepirates often threw the people into the sea.
Now one sunshiny day the Doctor and Dab-Dab were walking up and down onthe ship for exercise; a nice fresh wind was blowing the boat along,and everybody was happy. Presently Dab-Dab saw the sail of another shipa long way behind them on the edge of the sea. It was a red sail.
“I don’t like the look of that sail,” said Dab-Dab. “I have a feelingit isn’t a friendly ship. I am afraid there is more trouble coming tous.”
Jip, who was lying near taking a nap in the sun, began to growl andtalk in his sleep.
“I smell roast beef cooking,” he mumbled—“underdone roast beef—withbrown gravy over it.”
“Good gracious!” cried the Doctor. “What’s the matter with the dog? Ishe _smelling_ in his sleep—as well as talking?”
“I suppose he is,” said Dab-Dab. “All dogs can smell in their sleep.”
“But what is he smelling?” asked the Doctor. “There is no roast beefcooking on our ship.”
“No,” said Dab-Dab. “The roast beef must be on that other ship overthere.”
“But that’s ten miles away,” said the Doctor. “He couldn’t smell thatfar surely!”
“Oh, yes, he could,” said Dab-Dab. “You ask him.”
Then Jip, still fast asleep, began to growl again and his lip curled upangrily, showing his clean, white teeth.
“I smell bad men,” he growled—“the worst men I ever smelt. I smelltrouble. I smell a fight—six bad scoundrels fighting against one braveman. I want to help him. Woof—oo—WOOF!” Then he barked, loud, and wokehimself up with a surprised look on his face.
“See!” cried Dab-Dab. “That boat is nearer now. You can count its threebig sails—all red. Whoever it is, they are coming after us.... I wonderwho they are.”
“They are bad sailors,” said Jip; “and their ship is very swift. Theyare surely the pirates of Barbary.”
“Well, we must put up more sails on our boat,” said the Doctor, “so wecan go faster and get away from them. Run downstairs, Jip, and fetch meall the sails you see.”
The dog hurried downstairs and dragged up every sail he could find.
“‘They are surely the pirates of Barbary’”]
But even when all these were put up on the masts to catch the wind, theboat did not go nearly as fast as the pirates’—which kept coming onbehind, closer and closer.
“This is a poor ship the Prince gave us,” said Gub-Gub, the pig—“theslowest he could find, I should think. Might as well try to win a racein a soup-tureen as hope to get away from them in this old barge. Lookhow near they are now!—You can see the mustaches on the faces of themen—six of them. What are we going to do?”
Then the Doctor asked Dab-Dab to fly up and tell the swallows thatpirates were coming after them in a swift ship, and what should he doabout it.
When the swallows heard this, they all came down on to the Doctor’sship; and they told him to unravel some pieces of long rope and makethem into a lot of thin strings as quickly as he could. Then theends of these strings were tied on to the front of the ship; and theswallows took hold of the strings with their feet and flew off, pullingthe boat along.
And although swallows are not very strong when only one or two areby themselves, it is different when there are a great lot of themtogether. And there, tied to the Doctor’s ship, were a thousandstrings; and two thousand swallows were pulling on each string—allterribly swift fliers.
And in a moment the Doctor found himself traveling so fast he had tohold his hat on with both hands; for he felt as though the ship itselfwere flying through waves that frothed and boiled with speed.
And all the animals on the ship began to laugh and dance about in therushing air, for when they looked back at the pirates’ ship, they couldsee that it was growing smaller now, instead of bigger. The red sailswere being left far, far behind.